by Julie Plec
“That’s not Vivianne,” Rebekah growled, but she stayed where she was. “It’s something else, something unnatural.”
“We’re all ‘something unnatural,’” Klaus scoffed. He positioned himself between the two women, with Vivianne behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he cursed Rebekah for trying to plant doubts in his mind. “I know what you and Elijah did, dear sister, and you won’t have to worry about seeing me and my ‘unnatural’ bride back in the city anytime soon. I won’t abide traitors.”
“Elijah?” Rebekah straightened slightly, brushing wet sand from her skirts. “Elijah had nothing to do with this. You’re so paranoid, Klaus—it was a prank. A stupid prank that got out of hand, and I regret that. But after it was done, I saw—”
“A prank?” Klaus had thought he was jaded to the depths of Rebekah’s bad judgment, but she constantly managed to surprise him. “You meant it to be funny to poison us at our own wedding?”
“I didn’t poison either of you,” she pointed out, twisting her loose golden hair into a wet knot at the nape of her neck. Vivianne shifted a little, and Klaus wished he could keep his eyes squarely on them both without putting Viv in harm’s way. Why had she left the cabin at all, and why couldn’t he make that uneasy prickling sensation stop? “And I came here at least partly to apologize. But—”
“But nothing,” Klaus interrupted.
“She didn’t seem to want to apologize when she attacked me,” Vivianne murmured, and the soft, wounded sound of her voice made him even more furious. She had trusted Rebekah. She had thought she was gaining a new family to replace the ones that had turned their backs on her. And instead Rebekah had used her to make a point, to get back at Klaus over whatever petty gripes she imagined she had against him. Her betrayal of Vivianne was even worse than of him, because at least he should have known Rebekah well enough by now to see it coming.
“She ran out of the cabin screaming,” Rebekah told him, low and urgent, as if she could tell the tide was turning against her. “She drank blood at the wedding when no one was looking, and she just begged me to kill her.”
Did Rebekah really believe that Vivianne wanted to die again? They had gone into the water for some reason before continuing their fight back up on the beach. Had his sister tried to drown the love of his life while he slept just a few hundred yards away?
“She keeps saying those things,” Vivianne whispered. “I don’t understand what she’s talking about.”
Rebekah seemed to almost explode in anger. She sprang, knocking Klaus aside to grab Vivianne by her thin, trembling shoulders. “Tell him!” she shouted, and Vivianne cringed into herself. “Tell him what you did, what you said!”
“Please,” Vivianne whispered, and then Klaus smashed his fist into Rebekah’s temple. She reeled away, but she didn’t retreat.
“How long have you known me, Niklaus?” Rebekah’s pretty face was a tragic mask of disappointment and despair. She had some nerve, trying to trade on their long history together as if it had all been happy family memories. “I would never betray you like this. I’m trying to help you.”
Vivianne sobbed beside Klaus, her pale arms wrapped around her body as if they could protect her from the next attack. But they wouldn’t need to—that’s what she had him for. “You expect to trade in on some bond we never really shared, to convince me that my wife isn’t who I think she is? The only one who has betrayed anyone lately is you, Rebekah, lest you forget.”
“The prank was stupid,” she agreed, her chin set stubbornly. “And I am sorry, but I can’t regret it entirely, Niklaus, because while everyone was poisoned I finally saw Vivianne’s true nature.”
“Enough,” he snapped. It was too ridiculous. Drinking blood and begging to die and circular reasoning that somehow justified Rebekah’s appalling actions—it was as if she honestly believed she had somehow saved them all with her childish pranks.
To be fair, he’d had questions of his own at times: whether Vivianne was as whole and as strong as she wanted him to believe. But that was only natural, not the alarming disaster Rebekah was making it out to be.
Vivianne shivered in the cool breeze that blew off the waves. The tide was coming back in, and the cabin looked like it was miles away.
Rebekah had nearly reached Vivianne by the time he saw her coming at all, and before he could grab her she was gone again, dragging his bride toward the pounding surf. Vivianne screamed, but Rebekah didn’t falter.
“Tell him,” she ordered again, ducking Vivianne’s head below the waves. She came up gasping for air, and Rebekah pushed her under again. “I know you remember. Tell him what you told me!”
Klaus felt blind rage overtake him as he waded into the sea.
“I don’t know,” Vivianne sputtered, spitting out seawater, her hands trying to push off the water. “I don’t know!”
Unbelievably, Rebekah still wasn’t satisfied, but Klaus had seen more than enough. He reached them at last, catching Rebekah by her knot of hair, stiff with salt water, and dragged her head back. He bit her exposed throat, his fangs tearing through skin to leave a bloody hole in the center of her windpipe.
It wouldn’t kill her, but for the moment she lay limp on her back, bobbing on the waves like driftwood. He only needed time to get Vivianne away, to go someplace where his lunatic sister wouldn’t think to look for them. It had been foolish to come to the cabin at all, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
He carried Vivianne gently, cradling her against his chest. She stared up at him, her black eyes as deep as the sea itself.
They were less than halfway to the cabin when he heard the pattern of the crashing waves change, some disturbance in their rhythm that alerted him just in time. Klaus set Vivianne down carefully on her feet and turned to meet his sister’s renewed attack. Her throat was still a bloody mess, and she couldn’t speak. Her dark blue eyes were riveted on Vivianne, as if her only purpose in life were to destroy what he loved most.
As if she had a chance in hell of reaching his wife.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REBEKAH CHOKED UP salt water. She was floating, faceup and buffeted by each passing wave. She could taste her own blood mingled with the briny liquid. Klaus could be on the move already. Spiriting Vivianne away to some new hiding place. She couldn’t let them get away.
With some effort, her feet found the swirling sand beneath the water, and she forced herself to run.
Klaus turned when Rebekah was only steps away from Vivianne, and she saw the flash of his fangs just before she felt them tear into her. He aimed for her throat, trying to reopen her wound. She shifted and spun so that his fangs sank harmlessly into her upper arm. She continued her rotation, landing a solid kick that would have liquified his internal organs if he had been human.
As it was he staggered back, taking a piece of her arm with him as he did. Vivianne shrieked like the damsel in distress she was pretending to be, and Rebekah could feel that her throat had healed enough for her to find her own voice again. “How do you...not see...what she’s doing?” she demanded, ducking below Klaus’s next attack and using his momentum to throw him to the ground. “Is that delicate...flower...the Viv you fell in love with? She’s manipulating you...idiot.”
“Don’t you even say her name,” Klaus snarled, bounding back to his feet faster than Rebekah’s eyes could follow. “You tried to kill her.”
“I tried to make her talk,” Rebekah argued, her throat almost whole again. “I don’t want her...dead until we know what the hell she’s doing here.”
“She’s here for me,” he shouted, feinting for her head and then knocking her legs out from under her.
Rebekah landed hard on the sand, scrambling to get back up before Klaus reached her, his fangs extended again. For a moment, she remembered their fight in the mansion, before he had brought this evil down on their he
ads. She had been so angry, and he had been so unreasonable. That seemed so long ago. They had bickered like siblings then, but this time they fought like enemies.
Rebekah gouged at her brother’s eyes, then bit back a scream when he snapped one of her thumbs. She threw sand in his face with her uninjured hand—a childish trick, but effective. She dislocated Klaus’s shoulder with a deeply satisfying pop, then threw him as far as she could. As soon as he was airborne, she lunged for Vivianne, who threw up her hands in a futile gesture of self-defense. “Tell him the truth,” she ordered, compulsion filling her voice. “Tell Klaus what you are.”
Vivianne gulped in air, as if Rebekah held her under the water again. “I’m Vivianne Lescheres Mikaelson,” she answered helplessly. “That’s all I know.”
Klaus barreled into Rebekah’s back, knocking the wind out of her as they crashed together onto the ground. Rebekah rolled just in time to see the flash of silver in his hand, and to realize her mistake. Of course Klaus had brought his daggers on his honeymoon.
The dagger burned as he buried it in the left side of her chest, and Rebekah felt tears building in her eyes. All Rebekah knew was that she had failed, and now whatever was hiding in Vivianne’s body would be free to do its work unchecked. “You’re making a mistake,” she hissed at him, and he twisted the dagger deeper into her heart.
The blackness was coming, just the way she remembered it.
“You’ve lost your touch, dear sister,” he said. “Perhaps some time away will help clear your head.”
Vivianne’s face flickered in and out of focus. “You deserve whatever comes your way,” Rebekah whispered with the last of her strength.
Their faces dimmed and disappeared. The beach was gone, along with the cabin and the roar of the ocean. All that was left was Rebekah. And then, in another moment, there was nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I STILL THINK you should go in force,” Lisette said, resting one foot on the side of Elijah’s desk. Her injuries from the battle had been even worse than he had originally thought. Like any vampire she had healed quickly, but Elijah still found himself watching her, checking on her, marveling at her strength as if he hadn’t seen the same kind of supernatural recovery thousands of times before.
“Bringing an army of vampires to meet an army of werewolves is more likely to start a war than an alliance,” Elijah disagreed.
Lisette laughed, tossing her strawberry-blonde hair back behind her shoulders. Elijah caught himself staring again. He could still see her lying lifeless in his arms, and he wanted to replace every shred of that memory with the sight of her now, vibrant and vivid and full of energy. “Every vampire here follows your orders,” she assured him. “No one would step out of line. They would just stand there. Looking...impressive.”
“They would look intimidating,” Elijah said. “The werewolves don’t want to be swallowed up by a stronger force. They’ll want to know their voices will be heard.”
“Well, then, if you feel so strongly about it, leave the army at home. But you should have at least one person there to watch your back. Me, for example.” She grinned, raising her pale eyebrows to make her face look especially innocent.
Elijah smiled in spite of himself. He would have loved to have Lisette’s company during his visit to the wolves, but he wouldn’t be able to concentrate with her there. When she was in harm’s way, Elijah couldn’t think about anything else.
He stood impulsively, then leaned down to kiss her on her forehead. When he stood again, she was staring up at him, her gray eyes looking larger than ever in her surprise.
“I will not risk you on this mission,” he told her firmly. “And I need you here to keep an eye on things while I’m gone.” He didn’t expect to Klaus and Vivianne to come home anytime soon, but he was concerned that there had been no word from Rebekah.
Lisette rocked her chair back down onto the floor and stood. “You can count on me,” she answered, as if she wished she were saying something else.
He stepped closer to her. “I do count on you,” he said, then touched her chin lightly, tilting it up so that her mouth met his. She retuned his kiss, reaching up to hold both sides of his face, keeping it close to her own.
He couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had felt so natural and yet so thrilling. There was an ease in the constant friction between them that he couldn’t begin to explain. The feel of her mouth on his was like coming home.
He rested his forehead against hers, feeling more at peace than he had since long before the morts-vivants came to the bayou. “Stay here,” he repeated, but this time he was asking her rather than commanding her.
“Come home soon,” she replied, and that he recognized as an order.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, and it was a promise he intended to keep.
Elijah’s feet fell silently on the forest floor. He felt watched as he made his way through the woods, followed by dozens of yellow eyes. A twig snapped behind him and he spun, every sense alert. Elijah began to move even more cautiously, convinced that he was being trailed.
The werewolves had formed a little colony in the shelter of the woods, as far in the opposite direction of the witches’ compound as they could get while still remaining within striking distance of New Orleans. The reign of the Navarro wolves was over, and William Collado was their new leader. That was a bit of a sticking point for the Mikaelsons, since Rebekah was responsible for his father’s untimely death. William Sr. had picked a fight with Elijah at Vivianne’s engagement party, then had the bad luck to be on hand when Rebekah needed a scapegoat for an unrelated murder. Rebekah had turned Collado over to Eric, the captain of the French army, who had tortured and killed the werewolf without ever learning his true nature.
His son was unlikely to forget that little piece of his family history, but Elijah was optimistic that they could overcome the bad blood between them. No personal vendetta would outweigh a chance to regain some of what had been taken from William’s Pack.
Still, when the attack came, it blindsided him. Someone slammed into the center of Elijah’s back and knocked him down before he even heard the man. As the man’s large, balled fist pummeled his face, he was grateful that the full moon was still another night away. He saw stars while the man twisted a rope around his hands, pinning him to the ground. Elijah exploded back up to his feet and looped the rope around the werewolf’s thick neck, pulling hard enough to restrict his windpipe. The big werewolf’s eyes widened in fear, and Elijah assumed he was starting to figure out that he’d caught some unusual prey. His meaty hands scratched at Elijah’s forearms, but once an Original had the upper hand, the fight was as good as over.
The wolf began to gasp and then sag, and Elijah bound him with the rope. He paused to wipe the trickle of blood at the corner of his own mouth. Elijah resented being caught so off guard—for all his size, the creature had struck with unbelievable speed.
“What are you doing in this part of the woods?” the werewolf snarled. He didn’t seem to care that one of the most powerful vampires in the world had tied him up. Elijah wondered what exactly the werewolves had been up to out there in the wilds of the bayou. It seemed that exile had made them bold.
“I have business here,” Elijah said, “just not with you. Take me to William Collado,” he ordered. He didn’t want the wolf to get any ideas about another surprise attack. It wouldn’t do to have to kill one of them before asking the rest for their help.
Fortunately, the werewolf seemed to have had enough of tangling with Elijah, at least for the moment. He gave an annoyed grunt, but nodded. “Have it your way, vampire. But werewolf business is everyone’s business.” Elijah paused for effect, then untied the werewolf. The man’s thick lips were set with resentment, but he turned submissively enough to lead the way. When his back was fully turned, Elijah heard him mutter something under his breath.
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“What was that?” he asked, steel underlying his light tone.
The werewolf kept moving forward across the carpet of undergrowth, but cast one spiteful glance over his shoulder. “I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’” he repeated.
More werewolves appeared as Elijah got closer to their hideout, slipping out from between the trees. They moved so silently through the undergrowth that Elijah was never quite sure how many there were. The scout was no longer content to lead the way in sullen silence.
“You’ll need to go the rest of the way blindfolded,” he announced, planting his feet firmly on the ground and crossing his burly arms across his chest. No matter how much it annoyed him, Elijah had to let the werewolves pretend they were equals. If that was the ego stroke they needed, he would have to indulge them. But William Collado had better be more reasonable than his underlings, because Elijah’s patience wasn’t infinite.
He held himself still while a cotton rag was tied across his eyes, not risking any movement that might trigger a deadly misunderstanding. Rough hands shoved him forward, adjusting his direction along some path he couldn’t see. But he could hear his destination, the sounds of werewolves ahead vastly outnumbering those who walked behind him.
Two werewolves grabbed his shoulders to stop his forward motion, and one of them had the nerve to push downward as if trying to get Elijah to kneel. He yanked the blindfold off his eyes, thoroughly sick of the charade. He stood at the center of a ring of werewolves carrying torches so numerous that they washed out the stars.
There were more werewolves than there should have been—a lot more. They must have recruited new Packs since they’d left the city’s borders. The man who stood in the center of the circle was younger than Elijah had expected, and in his clenched jaw Elijah could tell that he still nursed his family’s grudge.
“You found us, vampire,” the young leader acknowledged, his voice gruff. The moonlight glittered in his piercing blue eyes. “Now, what do you want?”